Tallahassee, Fla. – For the second day in a row the entire FSU football team took to the practice fields for 24 periods in shells. Many of the biggest highlights came from the defensive side of the ball after the offense had a pretty successful outing the day before. The Seminoles will put on full pads for the first time when they hit the fields at 9:20 a.m. Saturday. Sunday the team will not practice as they take part in media day and fan day.

PRACTICE NOTES:

Kevin McNeil sat out Friday’s practice due to a minor shoulder injury and he will be re-evaluated Saturday. Antone Smith practiced but was held out after a minor injury to his hamstring.

PRACTICE HIGHLIGHTS:

As usual practice opened with special teams work before the squad broke into position groups.

The offense worked versus the scout team and then moved into run and pass drills.

In skeleton drills Drew Weatherford hit Goodman twice and also connected with Joslin Shaw and Rod Owens. Weatherford also connected with De’Cody Fagg on the biggest pass play of the drill for a long TD. Lee completed passes to Carr and Damon McDaniel. Carr made another great catch later in the period going down and digging out a ball from Richardson. For the defense Roger Williams broke up a pass and on the play the receiver was crushed by Anthony Houllis who knocked his helmet off with the hit. The biggest play was turned in by Toddrick Verdell though who batted away a pass and stayed with the ball picking it off and taking it back for a TD with his fellow defenders running all the way with him.

The practice concluded with 11-on-11, which was mainly controlled by the Seminole defense. The offense was able to put together a few nice plays. Ball had the biggest run taking a carry to the endzone. Weatherford and Fagg connected on an underneath route and then Weather ford completed a deeper ball to Owens who was promptly hit by rover Myron Rolle. Seddrick Holloway had a good gainer on the ground and Christian Ponder completed a pass to Greg Carr who had a productive day. Defensively Watson had another big hit in the backfield that had the defense celebrating. Justin Mincey also made a nice play getting into the backfield, jumping up and batting away a Lee pass.

QUOTES

Coach Bowden:

“Today again, we’re in shoulder pads and hats and tomorrow we’ll be out full pads, practice at the same time. Tonight, the seniors will go out to my house for dinner.”

“I think Antone, kind of, you didn’t see him work any, he had a slight, slight pull. He says he thinks he caught it before it did any damage. He missed a lot.”

On the offensive line’s quickness:

“I hope so. I think that’s Trickett’s thing. He wants them quicker, if he wants them quicker you’ve got to shed weight to get it. That’s what he’s working on.”

On when he’s picking a starting QB:

“What’s the hurry? Twenty-five or six more days, haven’t we? We’re in no hurry.”

On Lee and Weatherford:

“Well they’re making progress but they’ve still got a long way to go, boy. I mean, they missed a lot of passes out there today. I think there’s so many new thoughts going through their minds; it’s hard for them to get the consistency we want. If they ever get that thing up in the air, they’re gonna be alright. Both of them throw well.”

“Yeah we wanted to see Russell some, a little bit more. You know he had two springs ago, he had an excellent spring for us, got killed on the last play of spring practice, if you remember. Missed all of last year, missed all of spring training, so the coaches worked him a little bit more, especially with Antone out. So it got him some good work. I like what I saw.”

“Not big, but he’s got speed and got some moves and pretty good in space.”

On depth of the defensive line:

“I hope we stay healthy, but we’ve probably got more to work with there then we’ve had the last several years. Little bit more people.”

“Richard has got excellent talent. He just needs to get more consistent catching the football. You know, I think he does in practice, but in the games he’s dropped some that were just touchdowns. That’s inexperience, also. He’s a good prospect.”

“We ain’t scrimmaged yet; we’ve only been on four days of practice. I mean, take our time, make a right decision, make sure we do the right guy. Or right guys.”

On Weatherford and Lee:

“I’m gonna tell you what, I was upset the first day. Second and third day got better. Today, made a few mistakes, but didn’t let that affect them. It’s like playing corner, playing quarterback sometimes you got to have a short memory in the way that, you got to remember what you did wrong and not make a mistake again, but you got to brush it off and go play the next play. Cause you got to make plays to win. And today’s one of the first days that they made a couple big mistakes that I didn’t like, got on’em extremely hard, and you know what they did? Instead of going in the tank, (they) came back and made some plays at the end. That’s the way a football game’s gonna go, you’re not going to make all perfect plays. We just have to eliminate plays that beat us. Just not make it a terrible play–maybe a bad one, but not a terrible one. And stop it and then you gotta go back and keep making plays. And I was pleased in that avenue of it today. You know a football game’s got ups and downs, you got to go through them.”

“I’m a lot stronger. I came a long way from what I was last year. That’s one thing I like about Coach Bowden, his emphasis on the small things. So I know we do pull-ups and chin-ups and I hate those things, but I know for a fact that those are the things that help me, the small things are what really help.”